Italy Part IV: Southern Italy

Contents
  1. The Grapes and Grape Families of Southern Italy
  2. Abruzzo
  3. Molise
  4. Puglia
  5. Campania
  6. Basilicata
  7. Calabria
  8. Sicily
  9. Sardinia
  10. Bibliography

Southern Italy is more agrarian and less industrialized than the northern portion of the country, and it has been slower to develop infrastructure. Farther from the rest of Europe—geographically as well as culturally—it is also more isolated by mountains and seas. Although it is home to large cities, such as Naples and Palermo, and popular tourist destinations, such as the Amalfi Coast, the south has more poverty than, and over double the unemployment rate of, the rest of Italy. Some of its regions are not widely known outside the country, except perhaps to descendants of Italian immigrants who left those regions seeking opportunity.

During the unification of Italy in the 19th century, the Risorgimento government was largely composed of northerners. The south was hurt by heavy taxation, high protective tariffs on northern industrial goods, and a mandatory seven years of military service, which had a particularly significant impact on the farm labor force in rural areas. As late as 1900, the illiteracy rate in southern Italy was 70%, 10 times higher than that of England, France, or Germany. More than four million Italians—over 10% of the national population—immigrated to the United States between 1880 and 1924, most of them from the rural south and the island of Sicily.

Yet despite its hardships, southern Italy has a long and rich history with viticulture and was likely one of the world’s earliest centers of vine domestication, after the Caucuses, Levant, and eastern Mediterranean. A 2017 archeological discovery of wine residue in terra-cotta jars inside a cave at Monte Kronio, in southwestern Sicily, suggests that winemaking in this area goes back 6,000 years.

The arrival of the Phoenicians and then the Greeks led to the expansion of vine cultivation. The Greeks reached southern Italy

  • Hey, John! This is an interesting one. Terre d'Abruzzo was approved at the EU level in January of 2024 and is an IGP that covers the whole province. My read here is that is a catchall IGP so larger houses/factories can produce wines from across the region instead of a specific area. 

    The other IGP's are still in existence and producers are still bottling under them as of the 2024 vintage

    Typically when a PDO or PGI becomes irrelevant it will be "Cancelled" at the EU level. Also, after reviewing the Disciplinare of the IGP, they do not mention it becoming the catchall for the province. To my knowledge, the Province has 9 IGPs and the guide is updated to feature that. 

  • Hey Abruzzo no longer has 8 IGPs, they are all now "Terre d'Abruzzo" as of 2022 according to the Oxford Companion.

  • Outstanding guide and great pics, thanks!